


Making Up for Lost Lives

by Salamandriod



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salamandriod/pseuds/Salamandriod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I skipped like four cycles of reincarnation and I know you’re pissed at me for leaving you all those lifetimes but it wasn’t my fault please please will you take me back ' AU</p><p>AKA The time that Sebastian went to war and kept Jim waiting for 200 years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Up for Lost Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of a tumblr post by askkairi. Prompt was "I skipped like four cycles of reincarnation and I know you’re pissed at me for leaving you all those lifetimes but it wasn’t my fault please please will you take me back" which got my mind rolling.

What they had was delicate, to say the least. James didn’t let people into his heart easily, not even when he kept meeting them lifetime after lifetime. That was the one thing he hated about this reincarnation business, he kept having to exist the same dull people again and again. It wasn’t _always_ bad, of course. Sometimes he’d meet someone more interesting, like the Holmes brothers, and sometimes he’d have fun manipulating people that couldn’t remember just who they were. Sometimes, though, he’d have to deal with not remembering who _he_ was, and those were surely the least interesting lives he’s led.

 

Meeting Sebastian for the first time was almost enough for him to change his opinion about reincarnation entirely, but that was a secret that he’d hold until the world burned. Just for that he wanted to hate the man, but Sebastian never seemed to get the memo and leave him alone. Eventually, James could only relent, allowing his lopsided grin into his life.

 

Much of their first life was spent like that, Sebastian chasing after James and James pretending that he wasn’t absolutely mad for him. It was a strange relationship, but it was theirs.

 

Their next life was far more relaxed than the first. They recognized each other immediately in University and stuck themselves together at the hip, even if Sebastian was a bit of an annoyance to James.

 

As much as Sebastian would have liked to say that they lived happily ever after that, it wasn’t quite so. They fought, they tore each other down, and they split up for periods of time. But in the end they always returned with silent apologies and gentle touches. They ever went into what they did in their times apart. Some things were better left a mystery.

 

They spent two more lives like that, though they were both shortened due to tragic accidents and unforgiving sicknesses.  The sight of Sebastian bleeding out on the ground would send shivers down Jim’s spine lifetimes later, even when he could hear the other’s heartbeat beside him.

 

With each life they grew closer, Jim’s thick defenses slowly wearing down. Every time he wanted to hate himself for becoming ordinary, to hate Sebastian for _making_ him that way, the man in question would roll over to loop an arm around him and give him a kiss, and it was like nothing mattered anymore. For the first time in all of his lifetimes, he let someone else into his heart, and he was okay with that, if only just.

 

Good things never lasted, however. Jim meant for their next lifetime to be even more idyllic than the last few. He meant to try and be a better partner for Sebastian, but the idiot had to go and ruin it all for them.

 

Sebastian had run off and joined the military before they found each other, which wouldn’t have been a problem, had the idiot colonists not been throwing a fit. Sebastian had assured him over and over again that he’d be fine, that he’d come back and sweep him up into his arms once he helped subdue the rebels.

 

Their parting kiss was the only thing he could treasure from Sebastian until James passed due to age.

 

* * *

 

 

His next life was short lived, dying alone in his bed as sickness killed him from the inside out.

 

The next life was significantly better. He was an esteemed professor at Oxford, but he lived with only his orange tabby and piles upon piles of star charts.

 

In the next one, the Great War broke out, and James found himself searching through all the names of casualties. He wasn’t sure if he were to be grateful or brokenhearted that he never saw _his_ name.

 

By the time World War II happened in his next life, James had just about given up. In all of his searching, he never found even the slightest mention of a Sebastian Moran, like the man had gone off to the colonies and disappeared off the face of the planet. He didn’t want to dwell on _why_ Sebastian wasn’t finding him, but avoiding the issue couldn’t heal his shattered heart.

 

To ease his suffering he found a new hobby to entertain himself. Crime gave him the rush that he needed to ignore his heart, and with his brilliance he was utterly uncatchable.

 

That life came and went, and in the next one he knew just what he was going to do.

 

He didn’t waste any time, leaving his home when he was sure that he could care for himself. He’d plotted out his every step between his last life and this one, and not a single thought of Sebastian fogged his mind. He had a purpose now, something other than to wait for a solider that was never going to return. He even insisted on going by Jim to set himself apart from his past, if only slightly.

 

With time, his crime web grew until he was sitting at the throne of an underground empire. Even Sherlock and Mycroft had come out to play again, so it was bound to be a fun life. And surely with the whole world at his feet, one missing man was nothing, right?

 

Not quite so. His clients were more irritating than not, and it took only the most intricately planned crimes for the Holmes to even consider playing. He refused to let his mind wander, though, afraid of the memories that it would dredge up.

 

Unfortunately, his memories came to him one dreary afternoon.

 

Jim was just coming out of a meeting with a few of his American clients, who he could only just manage to hold his temper around, when his secretary informed him that there was a man waiting in his office. She said that he didn’t give his name, only that he asked where his room was.

 

He stormed up to his office, employees skittering out of his way at the sight of his fury. There was no one that would have the idiotic bravery to go into Jim Moriarty’s office uninvited, no one alive, at least. He tried not to think about that possibility as he pushed the door open.

 

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

 

The man held himself all too casually in the office of someone that could have him killed before he could draw another breath. He grinned at Jim with the same lopsided smile that he always had and his bright green eyes pierced into his little, frozen heart.

 

For a moment, Jim couldn’t breathe.

 

Then there was too much air in his lungs, and the only way to get rid of it all was to scream.

 

“Where the _fuck_ do you think you’ve been? You think you can just leave me alone for 200 years and just say that it’s been _a while?_ You’re fucking mad! I ought to throw you out onto the streets and let _you_ go through four lives without even a fuckin’ _hello_!” he shouts, not caring if the entire building can was now in on is personal life. He was too furious with the other, he needed to get it out. He even closed the distance to throw a few weak punches into his broad chest, as though it could actually hurt him.

 

The entire time Sebastian just stands there and takes it, though the smile disappears from his face and his head falls to stare at the floor. “I’m sorry,” he replied after a moment, voice barely anything more than a whisper.

 

Jim must have looked like he was about to start screaming again, because Sebastian quickly started explaining himself.

 

“I don’t know exactly what happened, okay? I remember kissing you one last time and heading off, I remember thinking about you ever damned day it took to cross the Atlantic. I remember begging my mates to get word to you as I bled out.”

 

A shiver ran down Jim’s spine at the mention of Sebastian bleeding out again.

 

“After that I don’t know a thing. I died to some fucking idiot rebel, and then I’m born again 200 years later. I didn’t mean to leave you alone, James. You know I never would have hurt you like that voluntarily,” he explained, and his voice was so soft it could have been a prayer.

 

Silence stretched between them for a long moment. Finally, Jim sighed and leaned forward to lean against Sebastian’s chest.

 

“Leave me again and I’ll hunt you down to preserve all of your organs in jars. And I go by Jim now,” he muttered, half muffled by the other’s shoulder.

 

Sebastian smiled and wrapped his arms around Jim, glad to be able to touch him again at last. “Wouldn’t dream of it for the world, Jim,” he assured. He let them stand together like that for a few moments, trying to make up for four lifetimes of absence. “So, tell me about this business you have, and do you think you have any need for a sniper?”

 

Jim tilted his head up to grin deviously at him. “Oh, I can think of plenty of reasons to keep a sniper around, but I think you’ll need to show me just how skilled you are,” he purred, leaning up to crush their lips together.          

                                                                                                                                                             


End file.
